


I live for you, I long for you

by skyatdusk



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Friends, Louis/OC necessary at the beginning but it'll be resolved hopefully soon, M/M, Sad Harry, Sad Louis, and liam who is the sweetest mate, everyone is sad, except niall who is a sunflower, idek i cant do the tag thing sorry, music shop owner louis, singer songwriter harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-21
Updated: 2015-11-23
Packaged: 2018-05-02 17:36:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5257544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyatdusk/pseuds/skyatdusk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis and Harry grew up together: they started off as playground friends and in their teen years they became that kind of best friends who fall in love with each other.<br/>Except one day Harry leaves to pursue his musical career in London and Louis decides that none of that has any relevance anymore. The past is past, the past is dead.<br/>It seems to work out fine for Louis this way, with his music shop and his girlfriend that he's soon going to marry.<br/>Until one day, by chance, he listens to Harry's debut album. And everything changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So here it is! It's my first time posting a story here on ao3 so I hope I'm doing everything alright.  
> I've had this story on my mind for quite a while and finally I've decided to start writing it about a month ago. I don't know how often I'll be able to update :/ I'll do my best, bear with me, at some point it'll all be coming.  
> The lyrics quoted are from Helena Beat by Foster The People, which is a damn fine song so highly recommend to everyone.  
> The title is (obviously) a quote from Olivia, but don't be deceived: it is quite the sad sad story. But I *promise* there'll be happy things in the future! Eventually. Promise!  
> Enough with the chit chat now... hope you enjoy reading xxx

The air is cold but sort of damp, the steel grey clouds seem to purposefully weigh down on your head and the streets look bleak and lifeless as people drive through absentmindedly to get to their work places. It's one of those days.  
Holding a paper cup full of coffee that somehow tastes more bitter than usual, keys dangling in his hand, Louis Tomlinson walks up to _Scratch_ , the best music store in town.  
Well. The only music store in town. But that's an irrelevant detail, right?  
Point is, Louis is quite proud of his job, thank you very much, and he absolutely refuses to be modest about any aspect of it. Because why should he be?  
At twenty-three years old (twenty-four in a couple of months, but shh), he practically owns this lovely music store where he's been working since he was eighteen. He loves music and he loves talking to people and he loves exhibiting his flawless music taste and (if it's a very good day) he absolutely adores convincing an unsuspecting teen to buy a Velvet Underground album instead of some obnoxious hit list record of no musical consequence whatsoever. He's not snobbish or a bloody hipster, god forbid, but he honestly loves music and he takes a really deep interest in it, so he would say that he's your go-to guy in town for advice on the subject. Plus, so far no one has ever complained – quite the opposite, actually. That unsuspecting teen? They would probably come back in a while, after they've given a good listen to the album they bought, and ask Louis for further advice. That's all the proof of success that Louis needs, that's the greatest satisfaction for him so yes, he gets to be proud of it.  
Business is surprisingly good, too. Apart from his obvious talent with people, he apparently also has a pretty sound sense of how to properly manage his own little business. And even though he is technically still paying for it (the previous owner, Leo, had offered to pass the store over to Louis when he retired, in exchange for a percentage on the income for a few years), at this point Louis considers it his home, in a way. And it's nice, it really is. He'd always dreamed to have a music-related job; and though his childhood dreams of becoming a famous singer had eventually died down in time, Louis feels like he has transformed them and adapted them and made them grow with him.  
All in all, Louis's life is pretty good.  
That's not what he's thinking about while opening the store on this early and damp tuesday morning, though. At the present moment, his mind is going more along the lines of _why the fuck did I have to leave my bed? My warm, comfortable, lovely bed – how it must miss me, what a cruel world we live in_. And if he is a touch dramatic in his thoughts, well, he's the Master of that Kingdom and it's nobody else's business.  
Louis enters his store, enjoying the feel of warmer air engulfing him like a good morning hug. He quickly moves to the backroom, throwing his beanie and jacket wherever they will land and casting a wary look at the pile of new albums and vinyls that had arrived the day before. Right. He said he was going to put them up on displays this morning, right? Or was it afternoon? Yes, definitely afternoon. It's not going to do any harm if he procrastinates just a tiny little bit, is it? The thing is, Louis absolutely hates sorting and putting new albums in place, because it's tedious and because he hates dividing up music by genre. It's obviously the most efficient way of finding anything in what would otherwise be a complete mess of a shop, but that doesn't take away from the tediousness and heaviness of doing it. Louis wishes his best mate Niall would come in today so he could force him to do it (which means, bribe him with food and beer). Sadly, Niall has to work at school today; he's a gym teacher, see, trying to corrupt the young minds of town to stay healthy and hydrated and exercise. Louis feels tired just thinking about it.  
With a sigh, he prepares himself for another day in his dingy cute music store. He turns the stereo on and, after a brief pause to gauge his own mood, selects one of his favourite albums.

 _Sometimes life, it takes you by the hair_  
_It pulls you down before you know it_  
 _It’s gone and you’re dead again._  
 _I’ve been in places and I won’t pretend_  
 _That I'd make it out just to fall on my head_

Not the happiest of choices, he'll admit it, but hey, whatever gets you going.  
Now Louis can take on another day.

*

The day drags by in a sort of slow daze: a few customers come in every now and again (mostly, the most affectionate ones, which is more than fine with Louis, even though expanding his clientele would be a good thing too). But all in all, Louis's left to keep himself company for most of the day. He plays record after record, he tries to read a bit but can't concentrate properly; he even looks over the checkbook making sure that everything is in order (it is). It's early afternoon when boredom really gets the best of him, so he picks up his phone and starts going through his contacts, looking for someone to pester with obnoxious chit-chat. His obvious first choice would be Niall, but he seems to recall that he said something about a meeting with students's parents this afternoon, so maybe not. He briefly considers calling his mum, he's already hovering over her number with his thumb, when he suddenly remembers that she'd pressed him to start making calls and inquiries about possible locations for the wedding (which isn't for another eleven months, christ, and it's not like they're trying to book anything fancy like a castle or a cruise boat, either). Deciding not to risk another conversation centered solely on that (for him) abnormally tedious and vaguely irksome subject, he scrolls past his mum's number. In the end, predictably, he ends up calling Michelle.  
The phone rings three times before she picks up, sounding a bit breathless.  
"Hey love, how's it going? Everything okay at the shop?"  
He smiles fondly; he can picture her, hair done up in a messy bun, round glasses perched on her nose, squinting at her laptop screen and making calls and respecting deadlines neatly and soothing angry writers with her honeyed words.  
"It's alright, just a bit slow is all. What about you? Editing the next masterpiece of contemporary english literature, are you?"  
Michelle laughs. She always laughs at his half-arsed jokes, all pleasant and neat. Everything about her is neat.  
"Sadly not, I'm afraid. It's a sort of travel-journal thing about the Highlands. It's pretty interesting, but grammar is quite jumbled up and the author is a nightmare. Oh... here he is, calling again. Sorry love, gotta go! Love you!"  
And with that, soft as breeze, she hangs up. Louis sighs. Not much of a chat to distract him and pass some time. He should've expected it, though – she's always so busy and works a hell of a lot. The other night she almost fell asleep on the dinner table, he recalls. And as much as it can be hard living with someone who just feels a bit absent sometimes (especially for someone like him, all pent up energy and an almost ever present need for company), Louis knows that Michelle and him are a great couple and that they're going the distance. And why shouldn't they? They started dating three years ago and have been living together for one year now: Louis feels very sure that their relationship is steady enough to last. And if he doesn't get butterflies in his stomach when he sees her, or if a lot of the times their touches are merely gentle and don't feel charged with a tornado of emotions – well, you can't stay a teenager forever, can you? Louis grew up, that's all. It's natural and it's good for him, and he'll take it.  
When the brief call to Michelle ends, then, Louis knows that he has literally no other excuse on the planet to avoid the dreadful piles of albums sitting in the backroom demanding his attention. Sighing as deep and heartfelt as he can, he drags his ass to the back and mentally prepares himself for the task at hand.  
_You can do it, Tommo. Everyone is cheering on you._

*

"You've got to be fucking bloody kidding me!", Louis shouts to an empty shop that meets him with dusty silence, the record he was playing having reached its end quite a few minutes ago without him even noticing. Because Louis has been staring at a particular stack of albums that somehow found their way to his store; he's been staring at those albums for the past twenty minutes, quite possibly. At first, he felt like every droplet of air that he ever housed in his lungs had been knocked out of his body with a fierce and purposeful punch in his guts. Almost right away, though, a strange kind of numbness had taken over him.  
Now, he's apparently regaining consciousness by the means of screaming his lungs out till he'll probably cough up blood.  
Because no way.  
He feels like the butt of a very bad joke, one that only a sad old forgotten comedian would make from a badly lit stage in a cranky little pub that no one remembers the name of.  
No fucking way.  
Because Louis knows the name printed in bold letters on the cover of this album. And the cover itself – a photograph of a hand holding a fair rose, a few petals on the brink of falling off but not quite detatched yet. Beautiful dream-like lighting, black and white and equal parts classy and luxurious. Beautiful cover art indeed, but the hand. Louis knows that fucking hand, too.  
Not quite believing his eyes (because, did he mention, _no bloody way???_ ), he holds the album even closer to his face and reads again the neat printing on it.  
_Harry Styles – Y_  
Oh, the irony, the bitter bitter irony.  
Why indeed.  
All of a sudden, Louis feels like a trainwreck as a tidal wave of memories floods over his defenseless mind and limp body.

 _4 years old. One of his first memories ever. His mum took him to the playground, it's a sunny day and he's so happy. He's playing in the sandbox when suddenly he feels something cool and light tumble over his neck. He turns around and sees green eyes lit up with wild joy and short unruly dark curls. It's a child around his age and he's throwing leaves at him. Louis smiles because the leaves are ticklish. Then he goes to pick one up and he nestles it between the child's curls. It looks nice, it matches his eyes. The child smiles even wider and so does Louis._  
_"I'm Harry", he says._  
 _"I'm Louis"._

 _6 years old. First day of primary school and Louis is terribly excited. He barely slept, he barely eats his breakfast and barely stands his mother fussing about his clothes. As they stand outside the school waiting for it to open, he keeps bouncing up and down, refusing to pose for pictures and turning in every direction. Until he spots what he was looking for: a dash of dark brown curls bouncing towards him and matching his excitement._  
_"Loooouuuu!!"_  
 _"Harry! Look mum, there's Harry!"_  
 _His mum smiles fondly at them and he hears her and Harry's mum exchange hellos and pleasant small talk. But he doesn't care much about that; all he cares about is the very serious discussion him and Harry are having about where in the classroom they are going to sit._

 _11 years old. It's a gloomy november day and Louis has been sleeping through the most part of it. But now he's woken up and he's restless and he feels cold all over although his forehead is burning up. He sighs and tosses in his bed, eyes slightly unfocused and the room spinning around him a tiny bit. Then he hears his mum knock softly on the door and her head peers in._  
_"Hi honey, how are you feeling?"_  
 _He shrugs vaguely._  
 _"Well, you have a visitor", her mum continues. It's all she can say before Harry impatiently gets past her and through the door. He sits on the edge of his bed with natural ease and smiles at him understandingly._  
 _"Look on the bright side, at least you didn't have to suffer again through Mark trying to be funny during Maths and Rachel throwing half a tantrum because her lip balm has disappeared"._  
 _And just like that, Louis feels so much better._  
 _They end up spending the whole afternoon watching cartoons on Louis's bed, hot tea mugs in their hands and comfortable happy smiles on their faces._

 _14 years old. So everybody has a girlfriend or wants to have a girlfriend or is trying to get a girlfriend, apparently. Louis has been trying for months to see the appeal in that but he keeps failing. He starts thinking that maybe he's doing something wrong. He starts thinking that maybe he just needs to go with it, try this thing out and see where it leads. Maybe then he would understand what the fuss is all about._  
_So one day, at Joshua's birthday party, he ends up chatting alone in a corner with Becky and he thinks that maybe that's his cue. She is nice, smart and quite endearing when she laughs at his jokes, even the terrible ones – that's something that Louis absolutely loves, when people laugh at his jokes. So when there's a pause in conversation, he takes up courage, leans over and kisses her. Her lips are soft and she smells nice, but that's it. Louis thinks that he could've had sort of a similar effect if he had buried his lips in a fluffy, freshly-washed towel. Which isn't a very flattering comparison, so he refrains from voicing his throughts._  
 _And no, Louis still doesn't get why other boys make all this fuss about girls. And since it's starting to nag him a bit (a lot), he decides to talk about it with the only person in the world he would trust with something potentially, well, embarassing? Yeah, probably._  
 _Harry lets him finish, listening intently and encouraging him with small gentle nods of his head. He's grown up a lot, but his face still reminds Louis of a sweet cherub, with just a tiny glint of mischief in the corners of his eyes._  
 _When Louis stops talking, Harry just keeps looking at him for a little, seemingly choosing his words._  
 _"I don't think you should worry too much about it", he finally says, slow and careful and soft like he always is. "I mean, like, I don't really feel so excited about girls either. And I think that, like, we should do what makes us feel good, you know. Just because everyone seems to be eating chocolate ice-cream, doesn't mean you have to if you don't enjoy it. And like, who cares. It's not weird, it's just something else. We can't all do the same thing, right?"_  
 _Louis looks at him as he's talking, looks at him as he finishes his little speech and goes quiet and he can't help a smile. He always feels so reassured and safe with Harry._

 _15 years old. It's January and it's cold. They're hiding out from the world in Harry's room, playing punk music to convince themselves they've got all the courage they need._  
_Harry's crying in a pool of curls and emotions, though, and it's a mess. Louis feels every sob of the boy nestled next to him travel deep inside his chest and all he wants is to take the pain away and imprison it far away from Harry, so that it could never find him again and hurt him again. "'s my fault", Harry hiccups again and again and again. "It's not", Louis keeps repeating soothingly._  
 _Harry's mum had just told him that she's getting divorced from his father and, though he's always been a shitty father, it's still the only one that Harry's ever known and Louis gets that._  
 _So now Louis is cradling his best friend in his arms and trying to ease the heartbreak away with tenderness, soft words and gentle hands. He holds on for dear life, holds on to all the pieces and doesn't let them scatter on the floor. He holds on to Harry like he's all the good and light in the world, and it sort of feels like he really is. He holds on to his best friend and doesn't let go when night falls, he doesn't let go when Harry finally falls asleep, exhausted and drained._  
 _He doesn't let go and he tells himself that he never ever will._

 _16 years old. Oh, the never ending bliss of cool air blowing over your damp drunken body. It's the first time that Louis has drunk more than beer and he feels inexplicably elated and invincible. The party at Jack's house is slowly dying down but he doesn't want to stop feeling this buzz of hazy energy, so he poured himself another glass of gin and tonic and took it outside. He wants to look at the stars – actually, he wants to count all the stars in the sky. He sits on the grass and looks up; it's too cloudy to see anything properly, though. Louis takes a sip of his drink, winces a bit (he's still not completely used to the burn of alcohol in his throat and the bitterness it leaves on his tongue) and pouts at the overcast sky. Maybe he gets lost in his own mind a bit, too. After a few minutes (or hours? Who will ever know), he feels a firm hand squeezing his shoulder and a body slumping down next to him. He would be startled, but of course he isn't, because even in his drunkenness there is no mistaking who owns said hand and said body. And it's Harry, of course it's Harry. It's always Harry, isn't it? Louis feels himself tripping over his own thoughts but he doesn't mind. He feels easy, he feels warm._  
_They sit in silence for a while, Harry stealing a sip from Louis's drink from time to time._  
 _Then, all of a sudden, the wind picks up, the clouds start moving and the sky slowly clears. It's breathtaking, maybe because they're drunk or maybe because they're so young they know everything that is worth knowing. At least, Louis feels that way. He's sure that Harry feels like that too, somehow._  
 _And so Louis turns to look at his best friend and finds his green eyes already firm on his face, clear and bright like all the summer skies. And Louis smiles, because he knows everything that is worth knowing. Harry smiles back at him, he always does. They are bright and they are carefree and they are spectacular, there is no doubt whatsoever about that._  
 _"Are we like the stars? Or are we like the clouds?", Harry asks out of the blue._  
 _Louis isn't sure if he understands exactly what he means, but at the same time he is completely sure that he gets what Harry is feeling. And so he answers as freely as the words stumble out of his mouth, not worrying about making actual sense._  
 _"The stars are too scattered and too far away from each other. The clouds are kind of dull. I think we're like the moon"._  
 _Harry's smile softens at that, and Louis isn't sure what he has said exactly but he knows that it's right, he knows that he's right even though he doesn't understand himself completely yet._  
 _And so Louis leans over towards Harry and Harry meets him halfway; and they kiss under the stars and under the clouds and under the moon, their lips are soft and clumsy and their heartbeats are crazy as a rollercoaster and their eyes are closed and their heads are light with all the beauty of every galaxy._  
 _Because they are young and they know everything that is worth knowing._

 _18 years old. Louis is 18 years old, he graduated, he just got a job he loves, he has plans for his future and it's all looking fine. But Louis doesn't feel like a young man with a sea of opportunities and adventures in front of him. He doesn't feel excited and he doesn't feel curious; he might start to wonder if he feels anything at all, actually. It's like all the oxygen on Earth has been stolen by mean aliens and he wonders why he seems to be the only one gasping and choking and possibly dying._  
_He digs his nails in his arm forcefully: the physical pain is real, but his emotional state is still incomprehensible and still feels anything but real. He bites his lip so hard he migth draw blood, except he isn't sure he's still got any blood in him at all. He's not even sure to be alive, at this point._  
 _"So, you are... leaving...". Every word is heavy and so fucking hard, blocking his airways even more than they already are, sitting harsh and foreign on his tongue, bruising his lips as it gets out through his gritted teeth._  
 _"Me"._  
 _Louis looks over at Harry, still hoping to have misunderstood the whole thing._  
 _"Louis, no.. it isn't like that, you know it..."_  
 _Louis shakes his head so hard that it might fall off his shoulders – he half expects it to, everything is so absurd that that would actually be a pretty normal and logical thing._  
 _"But you are. You so are. Just admit it. Why not. Is true"._  
 _Harry is silent for a few moments and Louis can't look at him, he can't stand it. He wrenches himself away from where Harry's arms had been holding his shoulders (gently, always so gently, so gently it hurts), moves a step further from him and looks out the window. The grass is green, flowers litter the back garden with bright and joyful colours, the summer sky is bright and clear.. And that's when it hits him, full force like a high speed truck on the highway. Maybe, in spite of everything, Harry's arms had still been holding him together – now that he's left that comfort, all the pieces of himself are beginning to fall and scatter on the floor and he feels like he is nothing. That's when he starts crying, bitter ugly sobs pouring from his lips, arms tight around his own body trying desperately to hold his soul in. But it's no use: it feels as if his soul has been ripped out of his throat, shredded and reduced to bloody fragments that are of no use and no value anymore._  
 _"Lou, please listen to me... I have to try, this is a great opportunity and... And you know how much I love making music and_ _how much I want to do it for a living. I want it so bad, so so bad, you know it. And..."_  
 _Harry's voice is so pleading and so desperate and Louis hates that he can recognise every shade of emotion in it. That is probably why he can't listen to it anymore._  
 _"It doesn't mean I'm leaving you, I would never want to do that. Maybe it's going to be hard but we can find a solution, we can make it. I believe in it, Lou, I really... fuck Lou, I believe in us. We can still be --"_  
 _"No", Louis cuts him off with a force he never thought he would have in such a situation. "You are leaving. So leave. Leave now. Go."_  
 _The words are sharp and the words are cruel and the words are bitter and cold and everything else that Louis has never been in his life. Up until now, it seems._  
 _Harry falls silent. Louis doesn't turn around because he doesn't want to see Harry's tears, but he can't prevent himself from knowing they are flowing. He just knows and he hates that._  
 _"Alright", Harry manages to whisper at long last. "You need to.. okay. I'll text you tomorrow. Or, like, call. Or just come ring the bell. I'll... yeah, well, you get it. I don't leave for a week, you know... Yeah. Okay."_  
 _He hears Harry shuffling on his feet, hears him approach his back tentatively and then stop and turn away back to the door, hears him open it and pause for a second in the doorframe and finally leave._  
 _"I wish you all the happiness and love, H", Louis whispers tenderly to an empty room._

_Louis avoids Harry for the next week: he avoids his calls, he doesn't answer his texts, he refuses to see him when he comes to his door looking for him. Louis spends the week trying to nurture the black hole that his heart left behind when it exploded, and he fails miserably._

_The day Harry leaves, Louis stays in bed all day and pretends to be sick. He pretends to sleep and he pretends to dream of better times and he pretends he doesn't feel anything._


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey kids, here is the second chapter :)  
> Huge thanks to everyone who read the first one, I love you all xx  
> This is (again) quite sad. Well. Very sad. Sorrrrryyyy! though after last night at the AMAs we have a lot of things to be happy about, so I don't feel too bad for dropping a bit of angst ;)  
> Anyways, I hope you like this :)  
> Oh, if you want to, you can find me on tumblr! skyatdusk.tumblr.com  
> Enjoy! :)

It's past closing time when Niall finally finds him, still curled in on himself in the backroom, probably looking as shit as he feels.  
Blissfully enough, during the afternoon no one had entered the store. Under normal circumstances, Louis would have hated such a slow day; today, he barely noticed.  
He gave in, after all. He gave in and to hell with all his resolutions of hiding the albums away and forget about them – impossible. At last, he couldn't stop himself anymore: he listened to the fucking album.  
Harry's album.  
Harry's voice.  
Harry's music.  
Harry's words.  
Louis isn't one to get into fights, but he's absolutely certain that punches or any other kind of beating couldn't possibly feel as painful as a bunch of songs. _Those_ songs. _His_ songs.  
He's just about to listen to the whole thing once again (because why not, if he's gonna be a masochist then he'll do it fucking properly) when Niall walks in and calls for him quite puzzled.  
"Oi Tommo? It's late, why aren't you closed up yet?"  
Louis waits for him to find him and uses the time to try and clear his throat and his head. He doesn't trust his voice right now, doesn't trust anything about himself.  
Niall's blonde head finally pops into the doorframe and looks at him curiously.  
"Oh, here you are! ... you okay, mate?"  
He looks unsure and genuinely concerned, which leaves Louis wondering what exactly his face must be like right now.  
"Yeah... yeah yeah, okay. Just tired. The job's taking a toll on me, isn't it? Ah well, I'm not as young as I used to be, almost time to retire I reckon!"  
His chipper tone is as false as a three-pound note and he's rambling, but he's not going to drop the facade and admit to anything.  
Niall must notice all this, because he doesn't push the matter although he looks anything but convinced.  
"Aaalright, mate. Know what? You need a good ol' pint and so do I. Let's get over to the pub, yeah?"  
Louis looks at him unsure, eyes quite dim and generally not his usual self. Best cut this off straight away, before he gets drunk and starts spilling everything and possibly turns into an emotional wreck – well, more of an emotional wreck than he already is. He sighs deeply. What a night lies before him, my my.  
"I'd love that but tonight I promised to stay in with Ellie, so." (liar liar dirty liar) "Next time, yeah?"  
Niall smiles easily and shrugs. "Whatever suits you, dearest", he answers sending a cheeky exaggerated wink his way. Louis can't help but laugh at that, because Niall is ridiculous and warm and sunny and he's the best friend Louis could ever ask for.  
"But, uhm... you know I'm here for you, yeah? Whatever it is. Just. Lemme know if you need me, for real." Niall looks partially out of his element (because yeah, they never really do this sentimental friendship thing. They just know, they don't need to say it) but he determinedly looks at Louis and lets his features bloom in one of his smiles that warm up all the cold places on the planet.  
And Louis is touched, he truly is, because it means quite a lot to him, knowing that someone cares and is willing to listen, even though he has no intention to talk about what's on his mind.  
Niall still lingers by the doorframe unsure, so Louis tries to work up a bit of strength and smiles at his friend as convincingly as he can manage. Niall knows him all too well not to see through the cracks and Louis can see that he's still on the verge of saying something, asking womething, trying to crack the mistery. After what looks like a brief internal battle, Niall sighs and shrugs his shoulders and sends his friend a wave as he makes his way out. "Call me, yeah?"  
He's already with a foot outside the backroom door when his eyes catch on the scattered cds.  
"Oh, cool, they arrived! This album's sick, mate, you should listen to it! I had to order it cause it just fits so well with your shop, you know?"  
Louis raises his eyebrows, disbelief taking over any other emotion for a brief moment.  
"Order it? You... what?"  
A mistake. That's what he had thought. They had messed his order up down in London and sent him Harry's album by mistake. That was the only possible explanation, after all. Unless...  
"Yeah, remember a couple weeks ago? When you asked me if I could fill in the order and send it while you were busy with balancing the check book? I just found this guy's album and remembered I had listened to some of the songs on Spotify and they were really good, Tommo. Like bloody great! So I got you some copies. You'll like it, I'm sure", Niall smiles through his words like he's the most fun friend in the world. And he is, he truly is.  
He doesn't know about this – any of _this_ , whatever _this_ is – so Louis can't be mad at him. That doesn't mean he's not gonna tear his head off if he doesn't disappear from his sight in ten seconds.  
Thankfully, Niall is already going for the door, seemingly unaware of the shock his words and his actions leave in his wake.  
"Oh", is all Louis can manage, his voice echoing through the now empty shop.

*

For the night ahead, which looms over him like a dark thick lump of sleepless hours, Louis has a plan. An actual plan, a fantastic plan, a perfectly contructed plan.  
When he gets home, he finds Michelle in her sweatshirt heating up some leftovers his mum has brought over. He walks over to her and places a gentle kiss on her forehead.  
"How's my busy editor?" he asks sweetly – too sweetly, probably, and if Ellie were paying close attention to him she'd definitely notice that something is wrong. But she isn't, and she doesn't.  
Instead, she starts jabbering about this headstrong rude writer who had driven her crazy all day with his absurd requests.  
"Can you believe it?! He called me five times in a row to demand I put him through to my boss because he doesn't think I am qualified enough to edit his _glorious masterpiece_!"  
She's upset about the whole thing and she's tired, Louis can see it clearly. Any other time, this would put him off a bit – tonight though, he actually wants her distracted and caught up in her own world of rude writers and hectic deadlines. Because if she is distracted by all that, she won't pay close attention to him, and that is the only thing that Louis truly needs tonight: to be left alone by the world. Alone with his memories, alone with his bitterness, alone with the dull ache in his chest that hasn't left him since he first laid eyes on that fucking album that afternoon.  
The album. A dead weight in the pocket of his jean jacket. A one way ticket to god knows what kind of further heartbreak.  
_No._  
Louis won't let it affect him so much. He will suffer through it all and he will cleanse himself, purify his soul and be done with it – with the music and with its creator. Once and for all.

Louis eats dinner with no enthusiasm and doesn't even actively pretend to listen to Ellie, who is (still) talking about work.  
She works a lot, he gets that, but for once it'd be nice to talk about something else. It'd be nice if she noticed something else in life – like her fiancé, maybe.  
Normally, Louis would feel guilty as soon as thoughts like that cross his mind. Because Michelle has always been the nicest to him, because Michelle has accepted him and loved him even when he wasn't exactly at his best. She helped him out of his dark hole, or rather: being in a relationship with her (a serious, committed relationship) helped him out of his dark hole. Except sometimes he wonders if it's because she's the right fit or him, or rather because she just happened to be there. Except he knows he can't afford to entertain ths kind of thoughts, except he knows he's probably not worthy of even trying to criticize Ellie.  
These thoughts that would normally make him feel quite guilty and possibly ashamed; however, they have no real power on him tonight: he's too emotionally drained for that, probably. And to say that his mind is elsewhere is the fucking understatement of the century.  
After dinner, Ellie annonces that she's really tired and that she'd rather go to bed – for which, Louis is really thankful tonight.  
"I'm gonna stay up a little bit and read, since I'm not that sleepy", he tells her as she kisses his lips softly, a touch that is so tender but also barely there.  
Louis fidgets around the flat for a bit; he feels exhausted but he knows he's not going to get any sleep tonight, no way. He makes himself a cup of tea and actually tries to read a bit to distract himself, but the words on the page keep twisting around before his eyes, creating images in his head that he can't shake off. (A hand holding a white rose... how long wll it take before the rose whithers and dies? How long before the skin on the hand is littered with wrinkles and all the signs of unkind time?)  
When he's certain that Michelle is fast asleep, he closes the book sharply and goes over to the stereo in the living room. He retrieves the cd, puts it in, plugs the headphones in and places them over his ears; he nestles himself on the carpet right before the stereo, booklet ready in hand, and takes a long shaky breath.  
Louis presses play.  
He's already played the cd that afternoon in the shop, but this times it's different – this time, he truly allows himself to listen. And god, how beautiful it is.  
It had to be so beautiful and painful, full of melancholic longing – it had to be.  
Most of the songs are rather minimalist in sound: deceivingly simple, they actually hide a very complex work of balancing and harmonies. They are all beautifully constructed to better showcase the voice – which has gotten much lower than he remembers, raspier too – not a tentative boy anymore, no: this is the voice of a man who has found his right, glorious path in life.  
It's all so beautiful that Louis gets lost in it and for a moment it's truly pleasant and almost peaceful – for a moment, he almost forgets about all the baggage that he carries within him; for a moment, he truly becomes one with the music. But how can he forget, when Harry's voice is singing those words in his ears?  
Because the music is exceptional and the voice is every raw emotion in the world, but the lyrics – the lyrics are what truly destroys him.

_Everything crumbles in on itself, in time_   
_And every wild dream stings in the daylight_   
_And you could, if you would, you could come with me_   
_And we'd swear by the moon to always be free_   
_But as soon as we reach our fingertips out,_   
_it's all gonna fall and burn to the ground_

Louis listens and listens, letting his heart break into the tiniest pieces. He's surprised not to see any blood on the carpet, on his clothes, on his hands.

*

The morning after, Louis is woken up by Michelle gently poking his shoulder.  
"Hey darling... it's time to wake up or you'll be late for work", she says softly right next to his hear. Louis grumbles and rolls over on the sofa, stretching his limbs and cursing at the dull pain in his neck.  
"You should stop making a habit of falling asleep on the sofa, you know. Our bed is perfectly comfortable", Ellie comments cheerfully as she goes to the kitchen and comes back with a cup of strong black tea – which gets Louis' full attention, because fuck if he needs it.  
"It's not like I do it on purpose, it just sort of... happens", he says grumpily, after taking a tentative sip that almost scorches his tongue.  
Ellie smiles fondly at his pout and leans over to peck his lips.  
"Alright, grumpypants... I've got to go face another briliant day full of useless arguments, yay!"  
Louis looks up at her as she stands, taking in her lean figure impeccably clothed in black bootcut jeans and a soft lilac cardigan that almost makes her pale skin seem to glow.  
"How about lunch together? You can come down to the shop, we can order something in."  
Ellie smiles at him while digging for her car keys in her bag. "That'd be lovely! I hope I manage to get enough time during lunch break... I'll call you, okay?"  
She blows him a kiss and throws him a cheerful "Love you!" while dashing out the door and down the stairs, leaving Louis alone with his tea, his mind and memories of the previous night.  
Marvellous.  
Louis sighs. For a moment when he'd woken up (a blissful, golden moment), he hadn't remembered his recent musical discovery. Not straight away, at least.  
It wasn't unusual for him to wake up quite disoriented on the sofa: oftentimes, he has trouble falling asleep, so he'd just nestle himself there with a book or a film and he'd usually fall asleep at some point without much transition time to actually get up and get himself to bed.  
Except last night hadn't been like a usual night; as soon as the scent and taste of tea had begun to wake him up properly, it all had started to come back to Louis.  
The music. The voice. The lyrics.  
He had listened to the whole thing three times, unable to stop himself to play it all over again once it had reached the end. Masochism at its finest.  
And now, now he doesn't know what to do with himself. Because telling himself that listening to the album was gonna be therapeuthical, somehow, is just a load of bullshit and he is well aware of it.  
If anything, the only thing it did for him is to bring back from the land of oblivion a ton of memories that it had taken so much time and so much work to bury far away from the conscious side of his mind. Fleeting moments, sensations, small sounds: it's all coming back to Louis' mind, like a flood that he has no clue how to stop.  
That first drunken kiss under the stars. ( _We're like the moon_ , Louis had said. How silly, how true.)  
And the way it felt when they held hands, how Harry's eyes looked in the sun; the smell of his skin and the rich sound of his laughter; the way he'd curl up at Louis' side while they were watching a film, suddenly making himself seem so small and young, and how he used to say that listening to Louis' heartbeat was the most soothing thing in the world.  
And then of course, the day Harry left. The fact that Louis will never know how he looked when he cast a last glance on their town, because he didn't go to see him off.  
Louis finishes his tea as quickly as he can, gets ready in record time and jogs down the stairs, determined to drown himself in work until he figures out how to properly breathe again.

*

Louis spends the day cleaning and tiding up the backroom (which was in sore need of it, honestly) and being extra-friendly with the clients.  
Ellie doesn't call for lunch.  
That night, Louis goes out with Niall for a pint at their usual pub.  
The next day, Louis tidies up the vinyl section of the shop.  
A week goes by like that. On Sunday, Ellie and him go over at his mum's house for lunch. Spending a bit of time with his sisters definitely brightens his mood; it makes him feel so good that he's even up to seriously discuss options for the wedding with his mum and Michelle, something that makes them both really happy.  
As far as anyone's concerned, Louis is fine and nothing has changed.  
Except every minute of every day, he has to forcefully push down the urge to start screaming in the middle of a casual conversation; or the urge to run away as fast as he can, go somewhere no one knows him and never come back. But he knows that the only thing he'd truly want to run aways from is his past, himself and his fellings, and that is something he'll never be able to do.  
So Louis settles for trying to ignore all this turmoil inside of him until all these feelings go away (hopefully soon).  
So, a week passes and nothing changes. He keeps pretending, he keeps smiling as sincerely as he can fake it, he keeps ignoring all the voices screaming inside his head.  
He places the copies of Harry's Y in the indie-rock section and pretends to forget all about it.  
A week goes by and Louis starts to wonder if he will actually have to live forever with this weight inside of his chest, pushing down on the bloody bits that once used to be his heart – all while smiling at customers, joking around with Niall, kissing Ellie goodmorning and goodnight and pretending to be superexcited about the wedding whenever his mother brings it up.  
Everyone that knows him has always said how strong he is, but Louis bets that he can never be this strong, that no one could ever be this strong.  
In spite of everything, though, he keeps it up and goes on with his life as best as he can. He's not sure whom he's doing this for: himself, the people in his life or his own pride.  
He just knows that breaking down is simply not an option. How pathetic would that be? People of 23 years old do not have a mental break down because of someone they fancied himself in love with when they were teenagers.  
As much as Louis tries to downplay the whole thing, he knows that it's something much bigger and much more powerful than just a silly teenage crush. Which is precisely why it makes him feel so much like shit, even after five years. But still, Louis can add that to the list of things that he's going to pretend to ignore.  
How does that saying go?  
Oh yeah.  
_Fake it till you make it._  
And keep faking it, even though you never make it.

*

Finally, on wednesday morning, it begins to rain.  
Louis has always loved the rain, when he has somewhere nice and warm to and he can watch it from the window with a steaming cup of tea in his hands. He particularly loves the way the sound of raindrops falling can mix so perfectly with music, if you know what to choose.  
Feeling calmer than he has in a week, Louis makes his way towards the backroom of the shop, where he keeps his faithful electric kettle, his provision of Yorkshire Tea and his beloved spiderman mug; while the water heats up, he turns the stereo on and after a second The Velvet Underground start filling up the air beautifully.  
_Perfect music for rainy days_ , Louis thinks.  
A few people stop by, mainly seeking refuge from the rain, but Louis doesn't mind: he has an interesting chat with three young grunge enthusiasts, gives good advice to a lady in her mid-fifties looking for a jazz compilation for her husband and, all in all, manages to have every person who stepped in leave with some new record in their hands. This is what he truly loves about his job: talking to people, sharing the passion for music.  
Louis is surprised, but today he actually feels a bit less shitty than he has all week – unless he lets his brain slip up and thinks about why he feels so shitty in the first place. Anyhow, considering his recent standards, today doesn't suck so much.  
Must be the rain.

It's mid afternoon when Niall stops by. It isn't raining anymore but the sky is still pleasantly overcast; today, clouds feel inexplicably friendly to Louis: like a fluffy blanket protectively thrown all over the world. Well, that corner of the world, at least.  
As soon as Niall steps through the door, anyway, the atmosphere changes immediately and it might as well be summer already. Louis briefly looks over at his friend in disbelief and, for the billionth time, asks himself _how the hell does he do it?_ Niall is effortlessly sunny, warm as a cuddle and loud as fireworks – in such a pleasant, refreshing way, though, that Louis can never bring himself to fully be angry at him, in spite of the endless banter he throws his friend's way.  
"Oi matey! How's life on this side of town, huh?", Niall booms as he walks over to the counter where Louis is idly shuffling around some papers, trying to decide which ones are useless and which he should keep.  
"You work precisely five minutes' walk from here, I'm not sure it can be considered a different side of town."  
Niall laughs at his faux-bitchy tone and claps him on a shoulder; then he seems to reconsider for a split second and gives him a one-armed hug and a ridiculous kiss on his hair, just to be sure.  
Louis makes a show of being disgusted and pushing him away, but he's smiling; it's always so easy, being around Niall. Briefly, Louis feels guilty about not having mentioned to his friend anything, not only about his recent private breakdown, but in general about Harry. He'd never talked about him with anyone, to be honest.  
But instantly, Louis mentally slaps himself and remembers that he'd decided to ignore all of it.  
_Fake it till you make it._  
Louis is a great faker, so he laughs and jokes along with Niall, settling in their usual playful banter.  
And if his eyes are off and Niall makes a show of being even more ridiculous and ridiculously affectionate than usual, none of them mentions it and they both pretend not to notice it.

It's later in the afternoon and Louis is basically ready to close off and call it a day (because no one ever comes to the shop so late anyway), when they hear the door open.  
"I'll be right with you!", Louis announces, his back to the door, while he finishes putting back in their place a couple of albums.  
"There. Now, how may I help y--"  
His voice cuts off abruptly, his chipper tone dies in his throat with a painful scratch; why is there no air in the room, all of a sudden? Louis has to lean on the counter for balance, relieving his shaky legs of almost all of his body weight.  
He can't stop staring at the man in front of him. He feels his body tremble all over, his mouth is suddenly dry and useless; and he can't stop staring.  
"Hi. Louis"  
It's just a whisper, really, barely audible over the sound of the rain that has started pouring again.  
But to Louis, it feels like a shattering thunder that could blow up the whole town; in some corner of his mind, where he feels detatched from what is happening, he's eerily surprised that it doesn't, that the buildings don't crumble like a paper castle and the streets don't cave in and fold over themselves in a fiery hell, just because of those two silly little whispered words.  
Nothing happens, despite how momentous and disastrous this feels to Louis.  
The echo of the whisper lingers for a moment in the air, but it's slowly engulfed and smothered by the thick silence that settles between them. Only in Louis' mind, it keeps replaying over and over and over again – like a mantra, except it really is doing nothing to calm him down.  
Louis can feel himself freaking out as if he were suddenly floating above his body – it must be the shock, isn't it why they say happens when you face a big trauma?  
This is definitely a big trauma.  
He suddenly hears a loud thump and then Niall cursing – he must've dropped something.  
_Why isn't he coming out here and see why all the awkward silence??_  
_Oh right_ , he remembers, _he's got headphones on. Great. Thanks, Ireland._  
There really is no way out of this.  
Louis finally steals himself and looks to the young man before him – he's been avoiding looking directly at him since he saw who it was, but now he forces himself to look at his face.  
Slowly, he trails his gaze from his hands (big and strong, a couple rings) to his arms and torso (snugly enveloped in a long black coat), until it finally reaches the face. And the eyes, those green deep soulful pools. Which (he notices) have never left his face the whole time.  
Louis keeps eye contact, even though it's probably going to kill him.  
Because all of a sudden, this is not about surviving anymore: it's about feeling.  
Louis might consider his life nice and comfortable, because it is; but he can't fool himself to the extent of pretending that it gives him opportunities to feel much, to feel strongly and deeply and completely.  
This moment, on the other hand – this moment is all a jumble of devastatingly strong feelings.  
Louis surprises himself when he finds that he has kind of missed, in the past few years, the way his blood picks up its pace through his vein, the way his heart becomes a fierce rabid dancer, the way his ears pick up every small sound and all his senses are alert.  
And suddenly he gets it: he's been bored.  
Louis swallows around the hard lump of cotton that seems to have lodged itself in his throat and gulps down as much air as he can.  
"Hello, Harry"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There there, don't hate me please. I'll try and update as soon as I can, though I can't promise to keep up a quick rhytm in updating all through the story...  
> anyway, let me know if you liked this one lovelies :) x


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